Polymeric vehicles for topical delivery and related analytical methods

Recently a variety of polymeric vehicles, such as micelles, nanoparticles, and polymersomes, have been explored and some of them are clinically used to deliver therapeutic drugs through skin. In topical delivery, the polymeric vehicles as drug carrier should guarantee non-toxicity, long-term stability, and permeation efficacy for drugs, etc. For the development of the successful topical delivery system, it is of importance to develop the polymeric vehicles of well-defined intrinsic properties, such as molecular weights, HLB, chemical composition, topology, specific ligand conjugation and to investigate the effects of the properties on drug permeation behavior. In addition, the role of polymeric vehicles must be elucidated in in vitro and in vivo analyses. This article describes some important features of polymeric vehicles and corresponding analytical methods in topical delivery even though the application span of polymers has been truly broad in the pharmaceutical fields.